On Dams and Currents Beneath the Surface
by LadyNightRunner
Summary: One little thing can tip the scale. A groggy morning. A forgotten report. A cadet who takes orders when given. A screaming headache. And when the damn breaks, there is nothing left for Sephiroth to do but to try and put the pieces back together.
1. Everyone has demons

This piece has been a long time in coming. Not because I've been working on it for long- from start to finish, it took a day or two with classes and work to manage- but because every FF7 writer has to do an altered-history-what-if-Nibelheim-happened-differently story. This is mine. I felt like exploring what kind of impact this altered history would have on the characters in a more personal and medical way, rather than how it would impact history itself. This will be a chaptered fic, but I don't know how long.

Questions should be directed to me at once, as I think it will be easier to explain some things individually rather than trying to work it into the story and make it make the right kind of sense.

Enjoy!

((Many, MANY thanks to my wonderful beta underhandlilies, who puts up with my raving and caffeine-induced insanity for two hours almost every night. You are the best beta a girl could ask for, Tea Leaf.))

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><p>"You're taking him."<p>

"No, I'm not."

"You don't have much of a choice."

Sephiroth snorted. "Yes, I-"

"War games. Three days from now. He's the only one not on assignment _and_ not signed up for the games."

"Angeal, you can't _honestly_ expect me to take _any_ solider on a mission with me when he looks like _that_."

'That' happened to be a picture on Angeal's phone, of his young student curled up in bed with a stuffed Cactuar in his arms and a thermometer under his tongue. Even with poor picture quality, he looked unwell.

"He's almost over it. He'll be just about ready to go when you leave, and it's a two-day trip, Seph. He can sleep the whole way, and get a good meal and more rest when you get there. He'll be fine by the time you head up to the reactor."

Sephiroth scowled. Angeal was right, as he so often was; the assignment wasn't for another two days. The trip would take two more, and there would be a delay between their arrival in the afternoon and their trip up into the mountains the following morning. Nearly five days to rest and recover was more than enough for a SOLDIER at Zack's level.

"If you insist," he muttered, trying to retain some dignity.

"I do," Angeal chuckled. He put his phone away and patted Sephiroth's shoulder. "Just put him in a corner with a jacket for his head and let him sleep. You won't even know he's there."

/

Sephiroth _did_ know Zack was there, because sitting close to him, preferably leaning on him, was apparently the most comfortable spot in the truck. He did sleep, though, snoring softly until Sephiroth briefly covered his mouth, just enough to change his breathing pattern. They repeated this exercise every few hours for two days.

Their arrival in Nibelheim was uneventful, though instead of Zack going to rest for the remainder of the afternoon, he vanished into the village with one of the support troopers. Sephiroth went up to the mansion to explore- and to find some peace and quiet. The long ride in a noisy truck, combined with the altitude, had given him a slight but nagging headache, and he wanted somewhere secluded to let it fade a little. Carrying a canteen and his phone, he vanished into the halls and rooms, wandering until he found a hidden passage…a library. Files with his name…

Zack found him after sunset, sound asleep at the desk he had carted his findings to. It had been dark and dank and unpleasantly suffocating down where he had found the files, and there had been a strange stink in the air that made his headache worse, so he had taken several trips to carry everything to a desk on the ground floor, where it was warm and reasonably lit and he could be comfortable after two days in the back of a truck. He didn't remember falling asleep, only many of the horrors he had learned and a woman's voice whispering to him.

"C'mon, we're gonna miss dinner," Zack urged, tugging at his arm. "Let's goooooooooo."

"I'd rather stay here."

"Bring your books with you, then. You need to eat. How long have you been up here?"

Sephiroth's two-quart canteen was empty. He didn't remember drinking any of it. He looked at it, then shrugged. "Long enough." He chose a few books he hadn't touched yet, and the completed files about him- a careful compilation of the other folders of observations and records. He wondered who had forgotten it, or if Hojo had another copy.

At dinner, his appetite roared to life, protesting the extended period with nothing but water, and he all but forgot about the files in favor of stuffing himself. He had enough energy remaining, after that, to shower and collapse in bed, holding a book he'd meant to start reading but hadn't even been able to crack.

/

Sleep came easily, and with it, dreams. Strange ones. Sephiroth squirmed and shifted in his sleep, fighting with strange, mutated monsters that became humans just seconds before he slaughtered them, standing over a ruin of a battlefield, watching a city burn…all with the voice of a woman speaking into his ear.

He was beautiful.

He was perfect.

He was her son, and so worthy of everything she had to offer him.

He was a god.

He could be god of this unworthy planet, if he wanted.

He could take revenge on all those who had hurt him.

He could…he was…everything blurred together eventually, and Sephiroth fell into a deep, restless sleep.

/

Morning came too. Damn. EARLY.

"Um…General? Sir?" Cadet Strife was a local, one of his support troopers, small, blonde, and prone to motion sickness. He'd spent most of the drive up in the passenger seat in an effort to curb his illness. Sephiroth had never met him, though Zack said he was nice. At that hour, Sephiroth didn't care if he was the nicest kid in the world.

"_What_?"

"Breakfast is ready. Z- Major Fair wanted me to check on you."

Apparently he'd slept through his alarm. Sephiroth sat up slowly, wincing as a stiff neck and back protested painfully. "I'll be down in a minute. My alarm must be malfunctioning."

The Cadet nodded and fled the room, leaving Sephiroth to groan and haul himself out of bed, wondering what he had done to himself to feel so bad in the morning. He hadn't been drinking. No strange drugs. No Mako shots. Nothing except…

"Zack, I am going to _kill_ you."

The chance to kill Zack didn't come. The young SOLDIER cheerfully piled a plate high with breakfast for him, handed him a mug of coffee to occupy his other hand, and derailed any desire to kill him by dropping a bottle of painkillers beside Sephiroth's plate.

"You look like you need these," he remarked, leaning over to snitch a piece of bacon from Sephiroth's plate. "What's up? You don't usually sleep late."

"Headache," Sephiroth grunted. He took four of the pills- never mind Zack's warnings that he should take half that many- and washed them down with half his coffee. "Likely because Angeal insisted on me bringing you along while you were still sick."

"You think you're sick?" Zack put the half-eaten bacon down and pressed his wrist to Sephiroth's forehead. "Shit. You do feel kind of warm. Maybe we should postpone the mission? Just in case?"

"Unlike you, Major, I am capable of functioning under less than perfect conditions. And as my system is more heavily modified than yours, I doubt this will progress beyond a headache. Be prepared to move out on time."

"Um…"

"That's an order, Major."

"Yes sir."

Sephiroth finished his breakfast in silence.

/

They drove as far as was possible, then left the truck with one of the support troopers and headed up the mountain path. Sephiroth had been dismayed to find that he felt nauseous on the ride up, and was only somewhat calmed when the fresh air on the trail helped settle his stomach.

The hike up to the reactor was miserable. Cloud explained that usually the few trucks that came in for maintenance and such came from the other side of the range, through a different pass, and that the trip took several days, off-road capability, and camping. Walking was easier, and preferred by all but a few of the maintenance worked and researchers who dealt with the reactor. Sephiroth didn't really care. All he could think about was that it would be a downhill trip on the way back, and he wouldn't have to worry about his shaking legs giving out. Even Zack, the perpetual fount of energy, was cowed by the incline and effort required to traverse it, and Cadet Strife seemed to be the only one not suffering.

The voice in his head grew louder when they reached the mouth of the entrance tunnel, and while Sephiroth was still pondering the reason for this, they came across several specimen pods set into the wall, long tubes presumably full of Mako running back towards the reactor.

Zack opened one, assuming, as they all did, that there would either be partially formed Materia or an empty interior revealed to them.

The _thing_ that flopped out, hanging in midair because of the tubes and wires connected to it, was not a Materia. It looked like it had once been human, possibly, but one lung and what appeared to be its heart were outside the chest, moving sluggishly. The skin appeared to have been burned or melted off, and as they watched, air contact with the slimy thing caused burns, then melting, then full degradation. Wires and tubes swung free as the thing slopped onto the floor in a puddle of thick fluid and assorted chunky bits.

Sephiroth threw up. He had time to stagger a few steps away from the pod before it happened, and to bend over to avoid soiling his clothes, and then it was upon him, wave after wave of crippling nausea, each culminating in another tight clenching in his belly and another painful retch. He stumbled over to the opposite wall to support himself, briefly wondering why Zack wasn't fussing over him until he realized that the only one of their party _not_ heaving up their breakfast was Zack, and even he looked rather green.

Eventually, it took Zack carting each one of them further into the tunnel, away from the remains of the specimen, to get all three of them to calm down. Sephiroth had to lean on Zack as they went, feeling weak and dizzy and wondering if there was anything left in his stomach. It felt like there might be. Good. He hated working on an empty stomach.

"Wh…what was that?" Cadet Strife asked softly.

"That," Sephiroth growled, "was a blatant lie, an act of cruelty, and likely a man who 'went missing' on an assignment."

"That was a _man_?" Private Jameson asked, voice shaking.

"I believe so, yes."

"And he was still…"

"Alive. Until the air hit him and set off a reaction in the Mako he was soaking in. Apparently he wasn't…done."

Private Jameson threw up again. Sephiroth's stomach turned at the sight.

"We will destroy any other specimens we find- on the way out. No need to make a mess to wade through on the return trip."

"Yes sir."

Down the tunnel, past pod after pod. Zack and Cadet Strife checked those with viewing windows, finding that some _did_ contain Materia in various stages of growth.

As they descended into the mountain, Sephiroth's headache grew worse. The voice in his mind was complaining about how he was slow and his brain full of fog, and he dimly wondered if that was because of whatever he had caught from Zack. He did feel extraordinarily fuzz-brained.

They emerged in the main chamber, and the voice in his head _screamed. _He drew his sword without a thought, staggering slightly with the weight of it on his tired body.

"Sir? What is it? Is there a-"

Masamune flicked, and Private Jameson was missing an ear and part of his cheek. Screaming, he fell back, clutching at his face.

Zack was on him in a moment, trying to wrest the sword from his hand.

"What the hell did you do that for? He didn't do anything!"

The voice screamed again, and Sephiroth struggled to keep his sword from rising again, shaking with the effort of controlling his own disobedient limbs.

_MINE! You are mine, child, and if you are not the perfect specimen, then you will be the perfect host! Give yourself over to me and I will spare your mind. _

The voice was coming from the same direction as the strange pull compelling him to move, pulling him to the clear, fluid-filled tank near the viewing platform over the reservoir. Sephiroth stepped towards it, flicking Masamune again. Cadet Strife screamed then, and a spell flashed towards him. A Freeze. Smart. Mako could explode on contact with open flame, but freezing it was perfectly safe.

"Seph, stop it! Don't…don't make me hurt you!"

He tried to cut at Zack, and found his voice then, screaming wordlessly as his body tried to bisect the young man. He couldn't control it, and he couldn't control the swing and thrust that sent the tip of his blade deep in Cadet Strife's thigh.

"Goddamn it!" Zack drew the sword off his back and faced off with Sephiroth, teeth gritted. "I dunno what's going on with you, but this has to end. Right now. You have one more chance to drop the sword."

The screaming in his head grew louder, and Zack faltered, one hand coming up to his head, touching his ear.

"Ah…fuck, what is that? It's like…someone screaming. Seph? Are you hearing this?"

_KILL HIM! He is inferior!_

"S-Stop me," Sephiroth whimpered. "_Please_."

He stepped, swung, staggered, fell to one knee, dizzy and uncoordinated. The voice shrieked with fury and his body jerked, slapping Zack across the side with the flat of his blade. The edges of it cut into his shirt and left faint traces of blood leaking onto the fabric.

"Stop you? What are you t- shit!" Zack leaped backwards, sword in his left hand, right arm cradled against his chest. A hunk of flesh slapped on the stone floor, sliced off of the man's bicep as if off a roast.

The voice was _in_ the tank, Sephiroth realized. His reading…Jenova…her remains. No one knew exactly what she was capable of…

"In the tank!" he cried, struggling to his feet. "Destroy it! Do it!"

"But-" Zack was forced to raise his sword in a last-minute block as Sephiroth honestly tried to behead him. "Cloud! Go!"

The little blonde trooper darted around Sephiroth and Zack, sprinting for the tank. Sephiroth's body jerked, trying to follow, and Zack opened up his side, fully capturing the attention of the thing in his head once more.

_Insolent CHILD! How dare you defy your own mother?_

Silently, Sephiroth screamed that she wasn't his mother, because he had had a biological mother listed in his files and her name was _not_ Jenova.

_You belong to me, boy. You were made for me and of me and you will OBEY!_

Cadet Strife swung his sword against the tank. The thick glass cracked, leaking thin dribbles of fluid.

_YOU **DARE** ATTACK ME?_

The screaming became so loud it was physically painful. Sephiroth bit his lip to distract himself, hardly feeling when his teeth cut through the skin and met in the middle. He stumbled again, heard Zack cry out as his sword hit home again, felt the younger man's blade slice into his bicep, an obvious attempt at disarming him.

"Kill her," he gasped, lisping with the damage to his lip and the blood flooding his mouth. His vision was blurring, likely because of the pain in his skull. "Hurry."

"What? Kill who- holy shit!"

The tank shattered under another strike, and a flood of fluid and broken glass washed around their ankles. What remained was an armless torso and attached head wearing some kind of metal helm, suspended by wires and tubes. The only resemblance to it that Sephiroth could see in himself was the silvery white hair hanging lank and wet around the creature's face.

"_That_?"

Something sank sharp claws into Sephiroth's brain and squeezed. He screamed, falling forward as Zack struck at him again, his scream turning into a cry of surprise and a different kind of pain when he caught Zack's sword in the thick muscle of his thigh. The blade sunk deep, and the deeper, jarring pain told Sephiroth it had scored the bone.

"Killherkillherkillher god PLEASE!" Sephiroth wailed. One of his hands released Masamune and came up, slapping over his mouth. He bit at it, teeth slipping in blood from his lip, feeling the pain from it even if he couldn't move it himself.

"Ah…_fuck_!" Zack rushed away, sword swung back, heading for the tank and the little cadet before it, slashing at the tubes and wires holding the body within.

**_NO!_**

Sephiroth struggled to his feet, staggering sideways, favoring his injured leg, arm shaking and hands slipper with blood, heading after Zack to blindly protect the creature in the tank. With his mouth uncovered, he screamed desperately, at himself to stop, at her to stop trying to kill his troops, at Zack and Cadet Strife to hurry up and kill it already.

Zack leaped, swung…his blade came down square on the creature's head. The helm split.

Time slowed to a crawl. Through dimmed eyes, Sephiroth saw the metal cut into skin, into bone, cutting straight down through the skull and sinking deep into the neck with a thick, sludgy sound.

The thing in his mind screamed once more, and he could almost feel it scrabbling, clinging desperately to his brain as it was drawn back into the dying body.

"MORE!" he shouted hoarsely. "Destroy it!"

Zack cut the body from the remaining tubes. It hit the floor with a sloppy splat and both Zack and Cadet Strife set to hacking at it. Zack went so far as to stamp on parts that came too close, crushing bone under his boots.

There was a final burst of pain in Sephiroth's head, leaking out to burn through his limbs. Blood dripped from his nose. He swallowed, dropped Masamune, found he had control of his own body again, and collapsed on hands and knees, trembling.

Zack used the flat of his blade to shovel the mangled remains of an alien invader into the reactor, and as they hit the Mako, Sephiroth shuddered and began to vomit, feeling each piece hit and burn and ultimately dissolve into nothingness.

"That's the last of it." Zack's voice was tight and shaky. "You okay, Cloud?"

"Y-yeah. The bleeding's almost stopped. Where did Jameson go?"

"Booked it back out to the pass, I think. Seph? You okay, sir?"

"He…he doesn't look too good."

"Shit. Here, hold this. And get his sword while you're at it." Zack clomped over and knelt at Sephiroth's side, one big hand gently touching his shoulder. "Sephiroth?"

Sephiroth whined softly. He had quickly run out of anything to vomit up, but that wasn't stopping his body from trying.

"Okay, okay, hang on. Lemme just sit you up. Calm down." Zack drew him up onto his knees, holding him gently and stroking his back. "Breathe, Seph. Breath."

He coughed weakly and leaned against Zack. Now that the fighting was over, his shakes had turned into shivers from chills he hadn't noticed previously.

"You're gonna have to tell me what happened later," Zack murmured. "But right now I think…" He hesitated, then pulled his glove off and touched Sephiroth's forehead. "Oh, fuck, you've got a fever. Um…okay, sit tight, I'm gonna heal you real quick and we're getting out of here."

Sephiroth nodded and let Zack move him against the wall. The Heal sealed the holes in his thigh and his bicep, soothed the pain in his side, and left his lower lip smooth and whole again. He listened while Zack healed himself and Cadet Strife as well. No one had died. Not like in his dreams.

"Okay, we're outta here. Can you walk, sir?"

He struggled to his feet, swaying, and reached for a support. Zack guided his hand to his shoulder and smiled faintly. Together, they walked back down the tunnel towards daylight. Judging by the angle of the sun, they had been inside less than an hour. It had felt like an eternity.

"Wait," he whispered as they reached the wide staging area right outside the tunnel's mouth. He pulled away from Zack, raising the arm with his bangle on it. He concentrated, finding it rather difficult to force energy into it, then fired off the most powerful Flare he could manage. Something deep in the reactor exploded, and he smiled thinly. "Now we can go."

As the spell completed, he felt his energy drain out with it, and he was unconscious before he hit the ground.

/

It took hours and a lot of near-disasters to get Sephiroth back to the truck. In the end he was laid out carefully in the back of it and braced by Zack on the drive back to town.

Back at the inn, Sephiroth was stripped down, the blood was cleaned off his body, and he was tucked into bed. Zack chased Cloud and Jameson out of the room and tended to Sephiroth himself, carefully coaxing water and weak tea into him, waiting for him to wake up.

After two days, Sephiroth had woken only partially, eyes opening in a delirious haze as he fought his way out of a fever dream, or when he struggled upright to make uncomfortable, breathy sounds and throw up.

Zack called for a medical evacuation and sent Cloud and Jameson back to Midgar with the truck.

/

When Sephiroth woke up, there was an IV in his arm, one with two tubes running into it, and assorted other medical bits and bobs attached to his body. He was naked except for a horribly inadequate hospital gown, hair gathered up into a braid lying against his side like a rope. He felt…weak. Weak and empty and sick because of the emptiness. He shifted, trying to get more comfortable and possibly into a position that didn't feel as vulnerable, and wound up setting off some kind of alarm- a pressure sensor, he assumed, since the shrill noise it made didn't sound panicked the way a emergency alarm ought to. He cringed, covering his ears and shying away from the side of the bed closer to the alarm, and finally pulled a pillow over his head to block out some of the racket.

Footsteps on the tile. Someone talking to him. He growled softly in response, determined to keep the pillow over his head until the alarm was turned off.

Blessed quiet. He lifted the pillow, finding himself faced with two nurses and a rather harried-looking doctor. He was summarily interrogated, checked over, given a laundry list of orders, and informed that he would be allowed to leave in the morning. No one bothered to tell him what was going on, or what had happened.

He sighed and settled back down, trying to sleep until morning came with his freedom.

/

Morning did come, and with it, Professor Hojo. He barged into the private room without so much as a warning, storming over to Sephiroth's bed with fury written all over his face.

Normally Sephiroth would flinch away or at least tense up at Hojo's approach, but he was just too tired to do so, so he remained where he was, lying on the bed, and blinked at the man who had walked in his nightmares for as long as he could remember.

"How _dare_ you," Hojo hissed. "How dare you _murder_ your own _mother_. How dare you destroy my specimen!"

What followed was a tirade that largely focused on how useless Sephiroth himself was, and all the things Hojo was going to do to him once he had been cleared for duty and therefore for his regular Mako boosters. He ranted and raved and screamed at Sephiroth, threatening a hundred punishments.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, Sephiroth's throat tightened. He was briefly worried that he was going to vomit, but the tightening was accompanied by hot prickling in his eyes, and right after that, tears, trickling down his cheeks without so much as a by-your-leave. He was crying.

As a child, Sephiroth had been taught that crying was bad, and when he couldn't stop himself from doing it, he thought something was wrong with him. It had taken Angeal and Genesis several years to convince him that it was natural, something the body did when it was hurting. He had come to accept it when he was in pain, but he had never understood crying for other reasons, so it was a nasty surprise when his breath hitched in a sob right there in front of Hojo. Blushing with embarrassment, he covered his mouth, looking down at his knees and hoping he hadn't been heard.

He had. Hojo grabbed his chin and forced him to look up. He sneered.

"You're even more worthless than I thought," he said nastily. "Your mother would be heartbroken…if you hadn't killed her."

"Jenova was not my m-mother." Another sob made him stutter, but he pressed on, angry that Hojo had lied to him about such a thing. "I had a human mother. You married her."

"_Her_? She was simply a convenient womb for you to grow in. Jenova was your true mother." Hojo idly checked the charts on the wall beside the bed. "Hmh. They baby you here. You will come to the labs when you are released, and I will do what I can to correct the…damage that has been done."

Sephiroth sniffled and swallowed another sob, blinking rapidly in a failed attempt to stem the flow of tears.

"Honestly, I never expected you to be _this_ much of a failure."

Sephiroth was still crying with Angeal padded in with a cup of coffee and the news that he was there to take Sephiroth home. In the minutes since Hojo had left, Sephiroth had sat up and curled in on himself, head resting on his knees, sobbing quietly, afraid of what it meant that he couldn't stop crying. Perhaps something really was wrong with him. Maybe he _did_ need to be fixed.

Something was set down on the bedside table, and a familiar hand touched his back. He made a desperate sound and flung himself at Angeal, hugging him as tightly as the IV would allow and sobbing into his shirt.

"M-Make it stop," he whimpered.

Angeal seemed as shaken as Sephiroth felt, but he wrapped strong arms around him and kissed his hair anyway, drawing him close. "Make what stop? What's wrong?"

"The tears. I can't…I c-can't make them stop coming."

"They'll stop on their own."

"But…but I don't want-"

"Shhh. Just let it happen. It will be over when it's over."

Sephiroth whimpered miserably and hid his face. Angeal shifted him around a little and gently stroked his hair until the sobs slowed, then stopped, the tears dried up, and Sephiroth was left trembling, red-eyed, and sniffling.

"Feel better?"

"I don't know."

Angeal sighed and released Sephiroth, getting up slowly. He leaned out the door to flag down a nurse, then returned to the bed, offering the coffee he'd brought. "What made you cry?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know? No idea, even?"

"Hojo was in here, scolding as usual. It just…started in the middle of that. I've never done that before."

"Too much stress," Angeal said firmly.

"What?"

"You work too damn hard."

The nurse showed up then, and the conversation had to wait while Sephiroth's IV was removed and the assorted machines were unhooked. One final check, to ensure that his temperature was normal and he didn't seem to be in danger of falling down dead, and he was allowed to leave. Angeal had brought clothes by some time before he'd woken, so he was dressed, and thankfully allowed to walk with Angeal standing close rather than deal with a wheelchair. He was silent on the way out of the hospital, out to the car, and on the drive back to Angeal's apartment until Angeal spoke up.

"Seph?"

"Mmm?"

"What happened? At Nibelheim."

"Ask Zack."

"I did. Repeatedly. So has everyone else. But he doesn't know what caused anything, only that you apparently went postal and tried to kill him and your troopers while screaming at them to destroy some specimen in a tank. And that once it was gone, you calmed down, got out of the reactor, cast Flare on something in the tunnel, and passed out."

Sephiroth bit his lip. There was no scar, but he remembered biting through it. "I don't want to talk about it, Angeal."

"You need to, though."

"I don't care."

"Would you rather tell me and Zack, or wait until the president or a member of the board comes after you, looking for answers?"

Sephiroth opened his mouth to answer, then made a soft sound and closed it again, vision blurring. He ground his fists into his eyes, forcing the tears away. "I don't want to talk about it _yet_, alright? I don't even know how I got back to Midgar."

Angeal sighed. "I can tell you that, at least. Do you want to pick up something to eat on the way home?"

"I guess."

They went through a drive-through. Coffee all around, doughnuts, and a fruit cup each as a healthy afterthought. Angeal chewed thoughtfully on a bite of apple fritter before starting to talk.

"According to Zack, after they got you back to the inn in Nibelheim, you spiked a fever over 104. You drank when he gave you fluids, but you couldn't eat, you weren't waking up, and you threw up repeatedly. He called a chopper to come in and rush you back to base. You've been home for a little over a week- they actually had you sedated for the first few days while they worked on bringing your fever down, and then it was just a matter of waiting for you to wake up." He smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry I made you take Zack. I didn't mean to get you sick."

"You didn't know," Sephiroth said stiffly. "I think…I think it was for the best."

Angeal sighed and stuffed the rest of his fritter into his mouth to free his hands up for driving, and nothing more was said for a while.

/

Sephiroth hadn't wanted to sleep, but shortly after arriving at Angeal's apartment, he found himself dozing off on the couch in spite of the two cups of coffee he'd had that morning. Reasoning that he'd been very sick, he allowed himself to sleep once more.

/

Late afternoon light was slanting through the window in thick gold slices when Sephiroth woke up. It did nothing to help him- he had woken straight from a dead sleep, heart pounding in his throat, entire body geared up for a fight, deeply afraid of…something. He panted like a winded chocobo, struggling to get a hold of himself, and was still trying when Angeal wandered in.

"Hey, I heard- Sephiroth? What is it? Are you alright?"

"I…I-I-I…" Sephiroth swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. He was shaking. Why was he shaking? Why was he afraid? "I just…I…"

Angeal frowned and knelt beside the couch, reaching to touch Sephiroth's face. He shied away from the touch for reasons he couldn't name, making a thin, frightened sound.

"Seph? It's okay. It's just me."

Sephiroth swallowed again, felt the fear begin to lessen, then hid his face as another flood of tears overwhelmed him without a warning. Angeal's hand came to rest on his shoulder and he jerked away.

"Don't touch me."

"But-"

"Don't. I'm not…I'm n-not a child."

"Did you hear me say that you were?"

"N-No. But I d-don't need to be comforted."

"Why not?"

"Because…" Sephiroth trailed off. There was no because. He didn't know why he didn't want to be touched or comforted or told that it was alright. Something in him _did_ want that. Confused and frightened by the confusion, he stood up, still shaky on tired limbs, and stepped away from Angeal.

"Where are you going?"

"I n-need a shower. I'm…sweaty."

"What you _need_ is to talk about this."

"No. I need a shower." Sephiroth swayed, then caught himself and vanished into the bathroom.

He felt better about crying when there was already water flowing over his face.


	2. Winging it

Just as a warning, this story is going to go fiddle around in Sephiroth's head and take him a lot of places he really doesn't want to go. First stop? Sprouting body parts where he didn't have them before. Second stop? Pet names. You have been warned. Also, as another warning, the next chapter will be upping the rating and involving some sexual content, mostly mention of intimate contact with no description of it.

A big thank you to underhandlilies for beta-ing for me again!

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><p>Sephiroth slept, woke long enough for Angeal to make him fire sale scrambled eggs and fresh orange juice, and then crawled back into the dark nest under Angeal's old patchwork quilt and slept again. Repeated for a peanut butter and apple sandwich in the afternoon. Slept even deeper.<p>

/

It was dark when Sephiroth woke up, without even a faint dimness creeping around the edges of Angeal's blackout curtains. The clock on the nightstand said it was a quarter past two in the morning. Not a pleasant time to be awake. Sephiroth groaned and rolled over, fully intending to go back to sleep.

He was still awake half an hour later. Frustrated, he crawled out of bed and padded out of the bedroom. The rest of the apartment wasn't as dark, thanks to the faint light from a streetlamp several stories below and the lack of blackout curtains outside the bedrooms. Angeal was apparently sleeping quite soundly, as there wasn't even the faint sound of his snoring to break the quiet.

Sephiroth went to the couch and sat down, drawing his legs up to his chest and resting his chin on his knees, arms wrapped snugly around his shins. He sat there, surrounded by the silence, and tried to meditate. Tseng had taught him how, years ago on a long, boring trip to a long, boring assignment. Despite Tseng's insistence that it was supposed to be calming but not _that_ calming, he often meditated when he couldn't sleep, as it usually relaxed him to the point that he _could_ sleep.

Not that night. He sat alone on the couch, feeling the shadows of the room pressing in on him from all sides. He wished for Genesis, for Angeal, for Zack, even for that little blonde trooper to be there with him, to push the shadows back a little.

"Mmmmmhhh…Sephiroth? What are you doing up?"

Sephiroth nearly levitated in his hurry to get up and put the coffee table between him and the source of the noise. Something in his back jumped and strained painfully, making him grit his teeth.

Genesis stood behind him, yawning, pulling his robe a little tighter around himself. "It's the middle of the night. What are you doing up?"

"Can't sleep."

"That makes two of us. I was going to make some tea. Do you want a cup?"

Sephiroth nodded. His nerves were sill singing with tension and he was having a hard time slowing his panicked breathing to a steady pace again. He remained where he was while Genesis yawned again and drifted into the kitchen, and then hesitantly followed the redhead.

With just the little light over the sink on, the kitchen was a den of shadows and sudden shine when light and movement conspired to bounce a jagged shard of silver into Sephiroth's eyes. Feeling jittery, like he'd had too much coffee, he leaned against the sink and watched Genesis start the water, then spoon loose tea into the pot, the actions smooth and precise after being done a hundred times.

"I thought you and Angeal were arguing."

"We were."

"Then why are you in his apartment?"

"I said we _were_ fighting, Sephiroth. We aren't anymore."

"Why not?"

"Many reasons."

"Like?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"You never get over a fight this fast."

Genesis sighed and put the teapot down to fix Sephiroth with a strange, almost distant look. "Some things become very unimportant when you think your friend is going to die, Sephiroth. We stopped caring that we were angry when we heard you were being brought back for emergency medical treatment. After we were told you were going to be fine…we couldn't remember why we were fighting in the first place."

"Oh."

"And it's easier to bear the thought of a friend in a medically induced coma when you have someone to hold you and tell you everything will be fine."

"I wouldn't know."

"You will, some day."

Sephiroth shook his head. "There isn't anyone."

"You keep saying that and there won't be."

"You and Angeal are the only people in the world strong enough to handle my strength. How could I carry on an intimate relationship with anyone else? I could break them beyond all repair."

Genesis sniffed. "You'd be surprised how gentle you can be, when you want it," he murmured. "Honestly, you'd be surprised how gentle _Angeal_ can be, big and powerful as he is. I'm easily broken too, if you haven't forgotten. You two have all the brute force and solid structure that I lack. Yet he's never once hurt me without my say so."

Sephiroth blinked at Genesis, clearly confused. "You've given him permission to hurt you?"

"Sometimes pain can be pleasurable. I tell him to hurt me when I want that kind of pleasure, and never at any other time."

"Oh."

Genesis scooted up to Sephiroth's side and hugged him gently. "I'm glad you're alright, Sephiroth. You had all of us worried."

Sephiroth hugged Genesis back, saying nothing. He drank his tea, thanked Genesis, and went back to bed. It was dark there, and he pulled the blankets over his head as a protection from the dark emptiness beyond the bounds of the bed and tried to sleep. Eventually, he did.

/-

"Breakfast!"

Sephiroth yelped, jumping in his tangled blankets and trying to fight his way free. The pain in his back had returned, burning and straining and pulsing with the pounding of his heart. He was stuck. He couldn't get free.

"Seph?" The bedroom door opened, a little too fast, and rebounded off the wall, almost smacking Angeal in the face.

Sephiroth flinched back, and the pain in his back came to a head, exploding out of his back in a sudden rush of feathers and blood. Instinct dictated he cry out and flail, and instinct served far too well- the new limbs flapped, jerked, and launched him across the bedroom, straight into the wall across from the end of the bed.

Angeal stood in the doorway, stunned, as Sephiroth became a panicked bundle of arms, legs, tangled hair, and huge black wings, fluttering and jumping and making terrified sounds, shedding feathers all the while.

"Mmm…'geal, what's all the- _Sephiroth_!" Genesis darted past Angeal and into the bedroom, trying to find a hand or a foot in the flurry of General. He came up with an ankle and followed it, apparently unbothered by the fact that Sephiroth was dragging him all over the bedroom, until he came to the man's waist. Once he knew where he was, he punched Sephiroth in the belly.

Sephiroth stopped moving at once, crumpling to the floor with a wheezy sound and clutching himself, whimpering and wide-eyed.

"That's better." Genesis picked himself up, smoothed his hair, and went to Angeal's side, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. "Tell me that the coffee's ready."

"It…is?"

"You're a dear. Thank you." With that, Genesis vanished into the hall, leaving Angeal to stare at his friend gasping for breath on the floor, arms and legs and wings spread every which way.

"Um…"

"Ow," Sephiroth managed.

"I'll say, you got blood all the way up to the ceiling." Angeal picked his way around the shed feathers and crouched at Sephiroth's side. "Something you want to tell me, Seph?"

"I have wings."

"Yes, I can see that. Why?"

"I don't know. Could you get away, please?"

"I think we need to figure this out before I go anywhere," Angeal said firmly.

"Suit yourself." Sephiroth managed to get to his feet in a single push, wings spreading and flexing, knocking Angeal flat on his ass. "'scuse me."

"Don't you go anywhere, we-"

Sephiroth headed out of the room at a trot, wings shivering and stretching as he forced himself through the door. They caught again on the bathroom door before he knelt, trembling, and leaned over the toilet, his throat tight and his stomach in knots.

"Dammit." Angeal had followed him into the bathroom. "I thought you were feeling better."

"I was…"

"But now you're not. Yeah, I know." He sighed and wet a washcloth in the sink. "I'm going to try and get some of the blood off your back. Tell me if this hurts."

"Okay." Sephiroth huddled over the toilet while Angeal bent over him, gently tending to the torn skin around the base of both wings. It wasn't healed yet, which bothered Angeal just a little, but he was determined to just be happy that the bleeding had apparently stopped already.

"Okay, I think you're done. Not much more I can do except maybe try to bandage, and I don't think that'll work very well."

Sephiroth leaned over even further and threw up, quickly and noisily, then slumped back, wings awkwardly crumpled beneath him.

Angeal knelt beside him and stroked his hair. "Did that help?"

"A little."

"Back to bed, then?"

"Did you say breakfast?"

"Uh-huh."

"What did you make?"

"Waffles."

"The ones with cinnamon?"

"Mmhm. Are you hungry?"

"I think so."

"After puking like that?"

Sephiroth nodded. Still shaking a little, he slowly got to his feet, wings fluttering and stretching at odd angles in an attempt at keeping his balance. Angeal watched him, waiting to see if he'd need to catch the man. He didn't, but he did face a bit of a problem when Sephiroth wedged himself into the doorway. Faced with the back end of his friend, which was mostly obscured by lots of black feather, Angeal pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

"Do you have any control over these things, Seph?"

"Sort of."

"Back up."

"Why? I got through before."

"You'll dislocate them if you pull too hard, and I'm not helping you pop a _wing_ back into the socket. Back up."

Sephiroth made a frustrated sound and backed up.

"I'm going to push on these. Try to move them the way I'm pushing, okay?"

Sephiroth nodded. Angeal took hold of the upper arm of the nearest wing and pulled, then pushed it back towards Sephiroth's body, feeling it bending and flexing and finally settling comfortably against his back, lined up on one side of his spine.

"There we go. Can you do the other one yourself?"

The remaining wing stretched out into Angeal's face, then drew back, folding up like the first. Sephiroth rolled his shoulders and sighed, then slipped out into the hallway. "Thanks."

"No problem. Waffles?"

"Waffles."

/-

Sephiroth had to eat sitting on a stool, as his wings were not going away and they made it impossible to sit normally. He didn't complain, sitting quietly and plowing his way through every waffle Angeal put too close to his plate. When he was finished, he attempted to get up and leave, but Angeal appeared behind him and leaned heavily on his shoulders, forcing him to stay put.

"Don't even think about it. We need to talk."

"I don't _want_ to talk."

"Sephiroth, you just came back from an assignment and a week unconscious sprouting _wings_ when you get startled awake in the morning. We. Need. To. Talk."

"I don't know where they came from! I've never had them before! I didn't _ask_ for this! For _any_ of this! Was I _not_ supposed to kill the fucking _alien voice in my head_?"

Genesis choked. Angeal pulled away slowly and sat down in his chair, staring at Sephiroth.

"The…the what in your head?"

"The voice. She said she was my mother, and Hojo has always told me she was, but I found some files that said my mother was someone else. A human. But there are parts of her in me…and in you two as well." Sephiroth swallowed hard, looking nervously around the room as if he might need to bolt at any moment. "There was this…her head and part of her body, in the reactor. Being kept there. She…she wanted me to do…horrible things." He began to shake, wings shivering, feathers fluffing up in agitation. "I told Zack and the cadet who wasn't Jameson to kill her…or destroy her. I think she was already dead, in a way." Tears came to his eyes again and he scrubbed furiously at them, frustrated at his inability to control himself. "She…_it_ took control of my body, but it seemed like she couldn't take over my mind…I think it might have been because I was sick…I felt so dizzy and out of it as it was, maybe it made it too hard to get a good hold on me." He swallowed again and pushed his plate away to rest his forehead on the tabletop. "I don't _know_ what's wrong with me."

"In _us_?" Genesis asked softly.

"Yeah. Not the same way…the projects that made us are different…Hojo and Gast were fighting over the method, so the project was split."

"And the wings?"

"I don't know. I think they were starting to grow or something last night…when you came out and found me on the couch."

"What were you doing on the couch last night?" Angeal asked. "You were in bed when I last saw you."

"We couldn't sleep," Genesis said smoothly. "I made us some tea and we went back to bed. But he was sitting on the couch when I got up, and I think I startled him, coming up behind him the way I did."

Sephiroth mumbled something that sounded like an affirmative.

Angeal sighed and ran his hand through his hair. Genesis turned his attention back to his breakfast. Everything was quiet for a few minutes, until Angeal got up and started rattling dishes around in the sink, apparently getting ready to wash them.

"Angeal?" Sephiroth asked softly.

"Yes?"

"What if I can't get them to go away?"

"The wings?"

"Mmhm."

"Then you learn to live with them. What else can you do?"

"I guess. When am I allowed to go back to work?"

"In a couple of days. But you can go back to your place today, if you want to. Why?"

Sephiroth sat up and shrugged. "I don't know. I just…I don't want to be sitting all day with nothing to do. I need something to keep me from…thinking too much."

Angeal returned to the table to collect plates, waiting patiently while Genesis finished the last two bites of his waffles, then stacked them and left them on the counter. Sephiroth watched him, trying not to meet Genesis' eyes; the redhead was watching him intently.

"I have paperwork you can do for me," Genesis drawled casually, sipping at his coffee. "I suppose I could bring it by, if you're that desperate for something to keep you busy."

Sephiroth hesitated. All three men hated doing paperwork and could be rather creative in their efforts to escape doing it, but if it would be all he had to do…

"Just some of it," he said finally. "I don't want to be doing all of it for you."

"I would _never_."

"And I would never sprout a pair of wings and get stuck in a doorway," Sephiroth muttered. "I'm…going back to bed." He stood slowly and left the room, careful of the doorway, retreating into the safety of the bedroom behind a closed door.

/

The next time he woke, he was covered in a blanket of black feathers, the wings were gone, and Zack was sitting on the bed beside him, braiding his hair.

"Mmrph?" He yawned, got a mouthful of feathers, and rolled over, coughing.

"Hey," Zack said softly, releasing the braid. "Heard you'd sprouted wings, but I didn't think they'd melt. Pretty cool to watch." He patted Sephiroth's back in an attempt to ease his coughing. "You okay?"

"I inhaled a feather," Sephiroth wheezed. He was surprised and bothered by the fact that the feather did not taste of dust, as he imagined feathers ought to, but of smoke and sage and a little of the first taste of winter frost. One of them had dissolved on his tongue.

"Yeah, I saw that. But aside from that, you alright?"

"I don't know." Sephiroth sat up slowly, shedding feathers all over the place, and drew his knees up to his chest. "I don't know how I feel…it keeps changing."

Zack frowned and gathered Sephiroth's hair up again, rebraiding the end and tying it off with a rubber band he'd had around his wrist. "Well, how do you feel right this minute?"

"I…" Sephiroth swallowed. "I'm…I'm tired…my back hurts. I feel…dizzy. Lightheaded. Strange." He looked at Zack, eyes large and glowing faintly with his discomfort. "I don't know, Zack."

"I know, I know… come here, babe." Zack pulled Sephiroth against his chest, stroking his hair.

Sephiroth stiffened. "What did you call me?"

Zack let go in a hurry. "Babe. Sorry, I…it's habit."

"Who, exactly, do you call _babe_ often enough for it to become a habit?"

"Um…pretty much everyone I know pretty well."

"And you call them _babe_?"

"It's a nickname. A…A pet name, y'know? It's affectionate. It means they're important to me. Didn't mean to offend you."

"No, I just…no one has ever called me by anything other than my title or some derivation of my name. And no one has tried to hold me like that." He looked at the wall, at the floor…anywhere but at Zack, but when he did, it was a curious, almost hopeful look, asking a question he didn't have words for.

Zack smiled faintly and opened his arms again. "Come here, Seph. It'll help, I promise."

Sephiroth hesitated, almost flinching away from Zack at first, then slowly leaned against him, resting his head against Zack's chest. He tensed when Zack's arms closed around him, shivered fitfully when big hands smoothed over his shoulders, and then closed his eyes and sighed heavily, relaxing against Zack in a sudden rush. A breathy little whimper escaped him.

"It's okay, Seph," Zack whispered. "Just breathe, okay? Breathe and relax. It's all right. Nobody's watching you, and no one's gonna tell you off. Promise."

Slowly, Sephiroth shifted to wrap his arms around Zack's middle and squeeze him tightly. He sniffled, and when Zack bent to kiss the top of his head, a handful of tears escaped, lost in the thick knit of Zack's uniform before anyone but Sephiroth knew they had even been there.


	3. Housebound

So yeah, I'm alive and all. Here's what's been keeping me away from all of you lovely people: summer school (composed of 2 separate 5-week sessions), getting a job, losing that job, looking for another job, Camp NaNo (quit at the 10 day mark to preserve my sanity), the Kingdom Hearts BigBang challenge, looking for a new place to live (no luck yet), and submitting my applications for graduation and for a potential position at a botanics in Scotland.

But you have not been forgotten!

Be warned: this chapter is a little mature, and alludes to activities that are VERY mature. Oh, and Seph's quirks are coming out again.

Enjoy!

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><p>Sephiroth returned to his own apartment shortly after noon, dropped off near the base gates by an army escort and left to walk the rest of the way back to his officer's quarters in the residential corner of the base. Angeal and Genesis kept pushing him to move off base, but he had always felt it was best if he stayed close, where he could be in the tower or on the field in minutes if he was needed. Now, however, faced with the dull gray building in a shadowy corner of the base, he thought they might be right.<p>

They were _definitely_ right. Dust had already settled all over the place, happily taking over during the nearly two weeks since he'd last cleaned. Not that there was much for the dust to settle on. Sephiroth was forced to endure random room inspections, as per Hojo, and had long since taken to hiding a few precious possessions with Angeal and Genesis. His own quarters were Spartan at best, decorated by a few framed recruiting posters with pictures of him, Angeal, and Genesis on them, and a fake plant he'd bought because he wanted real ones but didn't trust himself to keep them alive. Nearly everything was in shades of grey, with very few exceptions. Despite the dust and the musty smell, it felt sterile and unwelcoming. Claustrophobic. Sephiroth swallowed uneasily.

The next two hours were dedicated to frantic cleaning. He bustled around the little apartment, cramming week and a half old laundry into the washer, wiping every flat surface down with a dusting cloth or a sponge and cleaning solution, attacking his three windows with a rag and more cleaning solution, rearranging his collection of books on war history alphabetically by region, and throwing out most of the food in his fridge, long desiccated, grown fuzzy, or frozen solid by the inconsistencies of the machine.

In two hours, he didn't feel a bit better. Clean, the apartment pushed in on him. Freshened up, it was free to fill itself with the wartime smells of oiled leather, polish and cleaning supplies for his sword, and chemicals. With al the lights on it felt as open and invasive as a lab, and with the lights dimmed, he wondered what might hide in the corners where light didn't fall.

So he cleaned himself after that. It didn't help. Next on the list was groceries; half an hour on the website of the service he used left him with the promise of fresh food in his future, but nothing to do _now_ except a stack of files a cadet had dropped off. Most of them had his name on them, so either Genesis' papers hadn't made it or there hadn't been many of them to start with.

Paperwork took six straight hours, with one pause to answer the door and take the first half of his grocery order. Back to work with a bottled coffee, and by ten, the groceries were put away, the paperwork was finished, the apartment was spotless, his laundry was clean and put away, and the only personal hygiene activity he hadn't participated in already was shaving.

Carrying another bottled coffee and squirming with the tense itching on either side of his upper spine, he slipped out of the building and picked his way across the base, guiltily avoiding night guards on his way to the tower. He went in through the rear entrance, slunk past the guards there, and took the elevator every other six floors to avoid more guards but also to avoid taking all seventy four floors by the stairs, since that totaled a painful number of individual steps somewhere around 1500.

Rufus Shinra's personal suite took up a hefty portion of the seventy-fifth floor to the right of the staircase. Sephiroth had a passkey to access the private part of it, and entered through the main door opening off of his public office. The rooms beyond were comfortably appointed, warm, and smelled comfortingly familiar. He took his boots off in the entry and padded into the living area on silent socked feet, intending to nap the night away on one of the sinfully squashy couches. He could be gone before Rufus even woke up. With this in mind, he fetched a blanket from the trunk being used as a coffee table and curled up at the end of a couch, sipping slowly at his coffee. It was easier to relax in Rufus' quarters. Easier to ignore the press of the walls with the big windows offering visual escape. Just…easier.

"_Sephiroth_? What are you doing up h-"

Sephiroth hit the roof. Literally, unfortunately, as the first syllable of his name had startled him into a spray of blood and feathers, and the combination of long legs and powerful wings was more than enough to launch him straight up into the ceiling. The impact, however, stunned him long enough to him to crumple back onto the couch- and into the puddle of coffee from the dropped bottle. Groaning, he clutched his head, opening one eye enough to see Rufus leaning over the couch and staring at him.

"You have wings."

"I do," he groaned.

"You got blood and feathers all over my living room."

"I'm sorry."

"What are you doing up here?"

"I hate my quarters."

Rufus blinked. "I thought you liked living there."

"I _did_, I…I don't know. The walls were closing in. I needed to leave."

"I suppose that's reasonable. When did you get wings?" Rufus moved around the couch and gently helped to fold one of Sephiroth's wings up. "You're bleeding."

"This morning," Sephiroth grunted. He managed to get the first wing folded with help, but the second one had been landed on wrong, or had hit something. When he tried to fold it up, it sent dull throbbing pain running down his spine. He flinched and let it hang. "Am I?"

"Rather profusely. Off the couch, please, let's take this somewhere more easily washed."

Sephiroth got up and rather unsteadily followed Rufus into the kitchen, where he leaned heavily against the counter while the blonde pressed wet dishtowels against the broken, bleeding skin around the base of his wings.

"I suppose you aren't going to talk to me about what happened in the reactor, are you?"

"I'd rather not."

"Mmm." Rufus rinsed a washcloth, squeezed most of the water out, and reapplied it. "I can't make you. But will you tell me something?"

"Depends on what 'something' is."

"Do you think you're going to be alright?"

Sephiroth took a shaky breath. It was a hard question to answer. He was sprouting extra body parts at the drop of a hat, his own home felt alien and uncomfortable, he cried at the slightest provocation, he was full of a nervous energy and he _knew_ there was alien matter in his body. His entire life had been a lie, but what did it matter? He wasn't human anyway.

"I…I don't know."

"You don't know because you don't want to tell me, or you don't know because you haven't had time for things to sink in yet and you have no idea where you stand right now?"

"The second one."

"Then I suppose that's an acceptable answer." He lifted a towel and scowled. "You're still bleeding. Shouldn't it have stopped by now?"

"It didn't stop for a little while this morning either. And it didn't heal before I went back to bed, almost an hour after they came out."

"Mmm. I don't like that. Stay. I'll get the first aid kit."

Sephiroth nodded faintly and sank to his knees as Rufus walked away, resting his forehead against the edge of the counter. It was cool and smooth against his skin, reassuringly solid.

Rufus returned with a hefty plastic lockbox packed with enough basic medical supplies to last weeks at a time, and knelt again, swiftly cleaning the torn skin with antiseptic wipes. He gave the wounds a critical look, then spread cream over them and stuck bandages carefully around the thick bone sprouting from Sephiroth's shoulders.

"There. As good as I can make it, sans Materia." He closed the box and stood, stretching. "Did you want to stay here tonight?"

"If that's alright."

"You were going to anyway, so I see no point in throwing you out now. I was just getting ready for bed when you showed up, actually. Care to join me?"

Sephiroth stared at Rufus. "In…in your bed? With you?"

"If you want. There's plenty of room for you and those wings, if you lie on your side." Rufus put the box up on the counter and looked over at Sephiroth. "It's better than the couch."

On occasion, Sephiroth had shared a bed with Angeal and/or Genesis. It was usually because they were on assignment somewhere cold, or because they'd stayed up too late doing something or other, or because Genesis wasn't feeling well and wanted to be held. He'd never gone to bed with anyone just because. Normally he wouldn't even think of doing so. It was…invasive, and probably uncomfortable, and…he liked the idea.

"That would be…nice," he said softly. "If you don't mind."

"Of course I don't mind. I wouldn't have offered if I did. Come on."

Sephiroth woke with Rufus tucked against his front, comfortably curled to fit the line of his own body. They were both covered in feathers, as Sephiroth's wings had once again vanished as he slept. The slightest movement set them dissolving into faint mist that smelled like thunderstorms, so he kept the movement to a minimum and just lay still, watching Rufus sleep.

It would be incredibly easy to kill him, Sephiroth noted. He appeared to be a very sound sleeper, and there were no weapons in, on, or near the bed that he could identify. No Turks in the room. No surveillance. Just Rufus, half naked and defenseless, mumbling softly in his sleep, something about carrots. He could just…get his hands around that pale, pretty throat and squeeze a little, or roll over, clasp the fine-boned jaw, and twist hard to one side. There were other, messier options as well, so many that he wondered if he'd always known them or if the alien 'mother' had passed them on to him as it died.

Then he wondered why he'd even consider killing Rufus. While often an arrogant prick to people he didn't like, Rufus had always been good to him, and they'd known each other as children, on the rare occasions when their paths had crossed. Rufus pulled strings, now and then, to get him things or assignments that would have otherwise passed him by. Rufus helped him get out of stuffy formal functions. Rufus tended to his wounds and offered his own bed as a resting place. There was no need to kill him, or even to think about it. So why did he want to?

Rufus yawned and tried to roll over. Thwarted by Sephiroth's broad chest, he looked up, smiling sleepily. "Morning. Your wings are gone."

"They dissolve," Sephiroth mumbled, sitting up and trying not to cry out at the stiffness in his shoulders, left by the wings and the thick muscle required to use them. "The feathers should go away if you shake the blankets out."

"Mmm…I don't mind. They're beautiful. How are you feeling?"

"Stiff and tired." Useless, caged, damaged, and afraid, he added mentally.

"A good hot shower and more sleep will fix that. You're off for a few more days, aren't you? Lie back down and sleep until…mmm, until noon."

Sephiroth watched Rufus stretch and resettled himself beneath the bedclothes, pressed up against his side. Might as well. He lay down slowly, feeling his leg slide down Rufus' body as he moved, then realizing there was an inconsistency, which became all the more obvious when Rufus yawned and wriggled a little closer; the blonde was aroused.

Awkward uncertainty turned to curiosity in seconds. Sephiroth rolled onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow while he contemplated Rufus and how he was pressing himself against Sephiroth in a way Sephiroth usually associated with Angeal asking him to leave the room so he could roll Genesis over on the couch and make him whimper and beg.

"What are you- _oh_." Rufus rolled over at once, hunching over slightly, both hands going to cover himself. "I'm sorry. You…just stay in bed, I'll go- Sephiroth? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Sephiroth said nothing, but he grabbed Rufus' hip and pulled him flat on his back, nudging his hands out of the way. Zack complained about this, he remembered. So did a number of the soldiers and SOLDIERs he'd spent long missions with. He and Genesis were exceptions to the apparent rule of morning wood, and Angeal never talked about it. Rufus was, apparently, as normal as Zack was.

"Sephiroth, _why_ are you staring at me like that?" Rufus's voice was a little high and tense, but Sephiroth couldn't determine if it was because of his physical condition or his own influence.

"May I?" he asked, hooking two fingers into the waist of Rufus' pajama pants and tugging lightly.

"Er…I suppose you can, but why do you want to?"

"I want to look."

"Look at _what_? I don't have anything that you d- ah, fuck that's _cold_!" Rufus bucked when Sephiroth yanked his pants down without warning, then flinched back against the mattress. "Give me a _warning_!"

Sephiroth absentmindedly patted Rufus' head and sat up a little further to look at him.

"Yes you do," he said quietly. "I don't have this." He reached out to touch, and Rufus slapped his hand away.

"Sephiroth," he said slowly, "I like you. I really do. We've known each other longer than is probably healthy, and I have no problem with you coming up here to hide or to rest. But if you intend to grab my dick, you had better be planning on finishing the job, or you are going to be in _so_ much trouble."

Sephiroth blinked at him. "You want me to help you masturbate?"

"It's six in the morning, I'm hard, and a man I've been attracted to since I knew what sex _was_ is grabbing me. I'm certainly not asking you to put on a tutu and do Swan Lake for me."

"I can't dance."

"I _know_ that. Sephiroth, there are certain…things that one expects when asked to drop trou and submit to being handled. Sex or at least an orgasm is one of those things."

"I don't want to break you." Sephiroth reached again, slowly this time, and was pleased when Rufus did not try to make him stop this time. "Why do you have this?"

"_Break_ me? How on earth would you do tha-_aaaat_! What did I say about _warning me_?" Rufus looked down. "What, my foreskin? It's normal. My father doesn't believe in circumcision- the surgical removal of that skin at or around birth. You don't have it, I take it?"

"Nuh-uh. Neither do Angeal and Genesis."

"No surprise there. It's a common procedure." Rufus bit his lip. "I'm serious, Sephiroth. You keep fiddling around down there and I'm going to expect dinner as well as an orgasm."

"What if I want to keep fiddling?"

"Then as long as this ends with me happy, I don't mind."

"What if I hurt you?"

Rufus sat up, giving Sephiroth a look he couldn't place. "Do you _want_ to hurt me, Sephiroth?"

"No."

"Then you won't. I trust you."

"But I'm so…big. You're hardly enhanced, you don't-"

Rufus shook his head. "You won't hurt me if you don't want to. It's alright. Just…try not to drag this out too long, alright? I'm not particularly patient in the mornings."

Sephiroth hesitated, then nodded and settled down to learn a few things.

As it turned out, Sephiroth had more in common with a normal human male than he'd thought. Plenty of the things he liked were definitely things Rufus liked as well. He'd still felt awkward and unsure of what he was doing, but Rufus hadn't seemed to mind and had even rolled him over and returned the favor after finding that the experimenting was turning him on.

Afterwards, Sephiroth lay in the bed, panting slightly, trying to figure out what he was feeling. It was a little strange, a little nice, a little terrifying. Nothing he could define properly.

Rufus yawned and stretched beside him, then rolled over, tucking his arms beneath his head and watching Sephiroth from under thick gold lashes. "That was…. unexpectedly wonderful," he murmured.

"Erm…thank you…what does this mean, now? For…us?"

"Why does it have to mean anything? We enjoy each other's company, as we always have. We're just enjoying it in a more adult fashion. I would love to do this again sometime. Or move on to more intimate things, when you get over this obsession with how fragile you think I am." Rufus smiled at him. "Is that enough?"

"I…think so."

"But you don't know?"

"I didn't come up here looking for release. I just wanted somewhere safe to be so I could actually sleep. I needed somewhere to go, somewhere close…this was the best place to go."

"Clearly you needed something. Sephiroth…will you do something for me?"

"Mmm?"

"Do not shy away from me."

"What? I-"

"I can see you tensing, ready to get out of the way. Please…don't. I value and love you as a friend, and I would love to have you as a lover as well. I'm not turning you away. I would never do that to you."

Sephiroth bit his lip. "I…I will try not to. But I can make no promises. I don't…I don't feel like myself anymore."

Rufus nodded. "I can accept that. If you need anything, tell me, okay?"

"I need something to do."

Rufus blinked at him, surprised by the immediate response. "You need…what?"

"I ad paperwork…but I finished it."

"_Finished_ it? Sephiroth, Genesis showed me that stack. It should have been enough to keep you busy for two days!"

"I did it in two hours."

Rufus gaped at him, struck dumb by the simple announcement.

"Well then. I'll…see what I can find for you."


End file.
